Watch out for your teenager’s BMI. A higher than normal number is a dangerous sign

A new study has warned against higher than normal body mass index (BMI) among teenagers. They say it could impact the cardiovascular health of children as young as 17.

fitnessUpdated: May 28, 2017 12:25 IST

Asian News International

The scientists found that cardiovascular risk due to increased BMI was likely to emerge in earlier life.(Shutterstock)

Parents of teenagers, take note: A higher than normal Body Mass Index (BMI) may impact the cardiovascular health of those as young as 17, suggests a new study presented at the Conference of the European Society of Human Genetics.

Dr Kaitlin Wade, a Research Associate at the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC-IEU) at the University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, and colleagues used data from The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to investigate the potential link between increased BMI and cardiovascular health. She said, “ALSPAC is a world-leading birth cohort study, started in the early 1990s with the inclusion of more than 14,000 pregnant mothers and their partners and children, and provides an excellent opportunity to study environmental and genetic contributions to a person’s health and development. It was therefore ideal for this purpose.”

The scientists found that cardiovascular risk due to increased BMI was likely to emerge in earlier life. The design of existing observational studies (those just looking for associations in the population) have meant that they are unable to make a distinction between correlation and causation. The team was able to use genomic data from ALSPAC to detect the likely causal relationship between higher BMI and higher blood pressure and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) in those aged 17 and 21.

A thickening of the left ventricle in the heart (hypertrophy) means that it has to work harder to pump blood and is a common marker for heart disease. “Our results showed that the causal impact of higher BMI on cardiac output was solely driven by the volume of blood pumped by the left ventricle (stroke volume). This, at least in part, can explain the causal effect of higher BMI on cardiac hypertrophy and higher blood pressure that we observed in all our analyses,” noted Dr Wade.

The researchers are now trying to untangle the relationship between higher BMI and disease mechanisms including metabolomics (the study of the chemical processes involved in the functioning of cells and the abundance and diversity of microbes living in the gut - the gut microbiome). “We have also begun an analysis of the causal role of higher BMI on detailed measures of cardiac structure and function within the ALSPAC data. We hope to further explore these associations within an older population - the UK 1946 birth cohort,” said Dr Wade.

Professor Joris Veltman, Director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University¸ Newcastle, United Kingdom, noted, “Distinguishing between correlation and causation is tremendously difficult in medical sciences, especially for complex interactions like those between obesity and cardiovascular disease. In this study, statistical genetics approaches were applied to longitudinal cohorts from the UK to improve this. The scientists could demonstrate that obesity also causes poorer cardiovascular health in young adults. In contrast, higher BMI did not seem affect heart rate in this group.”